The main types of Omega-3 fatty acids derived from animal sources are EPA (signaler to help reduce inflammation), DHA (promotes fluidity at synaptic junctions, where memories are formed in neural networks)

Kado contains a high 2:1 ratio of DHA:EPA for cognitive health

Improve memory and reaction time17,18,19

Supplementation has many other benefits for cardiovascular and metabolic health

The word nootropic is derived from the greek words noos, meaning mind, and trope, meaning turning. In essence, nootropic perform one function: they turn your mind to boost your cognitive abilities and make your mental state better in some way, shape, or form.

Different groups classify different drugs as nootropics, but for the most part, everyone agrees that nootropics have two defining characteristics:

Keep in mind that nootropics are not vitamins or minerals. Usually, theyre synthetic chemicals produced in laboratories. Theyre not essential to your bodys functions. Theyre add-ons in that you use them and you feel better, but if you dont, its not like your body is lacking anything otherwise required. We do advocate getting the proper amount of essential nutrients, and minerals as a starting point to improved cognitive health. Well talk about generally optimizing brain health (your cognitive baseline) through sleep, diet, and exercise a later post.

Were being relatively vague here because there is a wide spectrum of nootropics available today. And they all claim to do different things for you. Its up to you to pick the right nootropic for what you want to accomplish. Later posts will cover the different types of nootropics, as well as specific nootropics to use in certain scenarios for studying, for sharpness, for recovery after partying, etc.

After understanding what a nootropic is, the next question that begs to be asked is, How do they work?

Every nootropic affects your body in a different way. Its important to note the distinction between results and commonly referred to as working mechanisms. One thing that we also want to note is that nootropics are a very subjective experience, and although one person may have great results with a particular nootropic, another person may have no result when using that same nootropic.

If the working mechanism for a drug is known, we know exactly how it affects your body. As in, if you ingest drug A, it affects receptors X, Y, and Z. This modification to receptors X, Y, and Z produces effects B, C, and D.

If the working mechanism for a drug isnt known, then we only know A, B, C, and D in the above example. For most nootropics, there is speculation behind the working mechanisms, but there has not been any conclusive evidence of these claims. As such, the working mechanisms being discussed are theories, not fact.

Dont let this turn you off of nootropics as a safe way to improve your mental function. The human body is incredibly complex, and we havent even begun to understand how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. We dont even know the working mechanisms for some of the most popular drugs sold worldwide.

Take acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) as an example. There have been tens of thousands of studies conducted with this drug, and after studying human reactions to it over, and over, and over again, weve come to these three conclusions:

Youd think that after tens of thousands of studies, a working mechanism would have been found, right? Unfortunately not the working mechanism for acetaminophen isnt known, and it doesnt look like well know exactly how it works anytime soon.

Take this example and apply it to nootropics. The working mechanisms usually arent known, but after observing empirical evidence over, and over, and over again, we can come to some pretty consistent conclusions about them.

Now, we know what youre thinking; If these drugs claim to enhance your cognitive abilities but the working mechanisms arent 100% known, are they legal?

The answer is both yes and no.

Yes: most nootropics are perfectly legal to possess. This means that if a police officer were to see you taking one and stop you, hed likely be suspicious (nootropics often come in the form of white powder), but if he were to conduct a field test on it, you would not be arrested or issued a ticket. Your package wont be taken if inspected by customs, etc.

No: like dietary supplements, most nootropics arent approved by the FDA. All countries vary on the legality of nootropics. In Russia, most are legal, and many are prescription medicines. We suggest that you research the laws of your country regarding possession of a particular nootropic before you order. Those are just two examples. Always do your research on your specific countrys laws before purchasing any nootropic supplements.

The cool (and sometimes off-putting) thing about nootropics is that everyone reacts differently to each one. This is pretty standard with drugs in general if we take marijuana as an example, it relaxes some people, whereas it makes other anxious and paranoid. Its your personal reaction.

In general, the effects of nootropics are fairly mild. Theyre not meant to be stimulants like adderall, ritalin, vyvanse, or concerta. Instead, they aim to take your base level of cognitive performance and bring it up. Go from being able to give 100% when not taking nootropics, to being able to give 105% or 110% when you are. If you focus in on how the nootropic is affecting you, youll be able to tell, but with the vast majority of nootropics, you wont feel over-stimulated or anything of that nature, sometime the effects are rather subtle. One thing that we suggest is tracking the efficacy of the nootropics you take to really determine the value you are getting from nootropics; this is covered later.

Also, you should expect no comedown and no come up. Nootropics work in the background. When you dose, you wont feel a rush (although some do report a tingly feeling), and when the nootropic starts to wear off, you wont feel like youre crashing. Instead, youll slowly climb to where your cognitive abilities are enhanced, and then gradually ease off of that as the chemical is depleted until youre at your normal baseline mental state.

Every nootropic out there can be categorized into a certain subset of nootropics. Here are the main ones below all popular nootropics will fall into one of these categories. Well talk about some more specific nootropics later. If youd like to skip ahead to the best nootropics for beginners, click here

Racetams (One our of favorites)

All racetams (about 20 in total, depending on who you ask) are derived from the king: piracetam. After being synthesized in the early 1970s, piracetam quickly took its place at the vanguard of the nootropic movement if you ask someone to name a nootropic, piracetam will always be the first answer.

The formula for piracetam is C6H10N2O2, and most of its derivatives such a aniracetam, oxiracetam, and pramiracetam have certain elements added or removed from that base structure. Good ol piracetam provides a wide range of cognitive enhancements including improved memory, improved verbal articulation, improved long and short term memory, etc.

More often than not, a racetam is the base of any nootropic stack. Users often add other nootropics to enhance the effects of a racetam.

If youre diving into nootropics and want the surefire bet, choose piracetam. But if you have certain needs maybe you want more energy than piracetam, or you need a creative boost then its worth checking out its derivatives. Despite their formulaic similarities, users report substantially different effects when taking them.

Choline (usually paired with racetams)

Choline isnt usually used by itself in the nootropic landscape, but its a very common addition to any nootropic combination (stack). There are two reasons for this, choline itself gives you additional cognitive enhancements, and adding choline is theorized to boost the effects of any racetam that increases acetylcholine uptake. Choline was once classified as vitamin B4 and has since been reclassified as an essential nutrient and is metabolized by the body in acetylcholine.

Before going further I want to note that acetylcholine is an important neurotransmitter that is thought to be responsible for decision making and certain types of learning. Many nootropics have some effect on the way the body processes or interacts with acetylcholine and those effects generally have cognitive benefits when utilized responsibly.

To put it simply, adding in a choline source means that you have an increased amount of acetylcholine available in your body. Having plenty of acetylcholine is said to have cognitive enhancing benefits all by itself, but theyre usually amplified when you have another nootropic in the mix.

Also, there have been studies that suggest piracetam (and most other racetams) deplets the acetylcholine you havein your brain. If your body doesnot have enough acetylcholine, the end result is that youll often end up with headaches. The same works the other way, which is another reason why almost no one adds in a choline source without adding in a nootropic, as having too much acetylcholine (or anything else for that matter) is generally not a good thing. They balance each other out perfectly to give you cognitive enhancementand prevent you from getting headaches; its a symbiotic relationship that requires balancing.

Youll notice that there are two terms mentioned here acetylcholine and choline sources. Choline sources are the actual supplements you take, and once ingested, they increase your acetylcholine levels.Every choline source will produce a different amount of acetylcholine. Alpha GPC is considered to be the most potent with highest bioavailability. A rudimentary search will put you on the right track see what others users have paired with their particular nootropics to balance acetylcholine levels correctly. For more information on choline, check out our beginners guide to choline.

The Natural Ones

Natural nootropics are no different from what youd referred to as natural herbs or natural remedies; they are naturally-occurring elements (from plants) that when ingested, provide cognitive enhancing effects.

The effects of natural nootropics vary greatly, and by and large, users have vastly different experiences with each and every one. Some claim theyre straight placebo, whereas others think that they can be even more potent than their human-made counterparts. However, the general consensus is that theyre less potent than synthetic nootropics are.

This shouldnt turn you off to them as a whole. Although less potent, some natural nootropics provide benefits in some way, shape, or form that synthetic ones cant match. Generall speaking, because natural nootropics are (by definition) from nature, they are often available at a cheaper price than synthetic nootropics are. No laboratories, purity tests, etc. are needed.

Bacopi Monneri is one of the most prevalent natural nootropics. It acts as a memory and anxiety aid, but effects usually take 6-8 weeks to kick in this is a great example of natural nootropics being less potent than a synthetic memory or anxiety aid that might take effect within just a couple of days, or even immediately. Its also a great example of how one can work in a way that its synthetic counterpart cant while anti-anxiety nootropics are usually borderline sedative, users report that Bacopi Monneri works in the background so that you dont feel like youre under the influence.

Other popular natural nootropics are Huperzine-A, and Gingko Biloba. If youre interested in nootropics but arent a fan of the ones produced in laboratories, these three are great jumping-off points.

Smart Drugs

Smart drugs are where the border between nootropic and drug is tested; some consider smart drugs to be nootropics, whereas others think that they should be heavily regulated just as prescription medications are.

Modafinil is the best example of a smart drug. Its prescribed in some countries, banned in some, and completely legal in others. It promises a full-blown energy increase similar to adderall, but without the euphoria or other side effects.

Many people think that smart drugs like modafinil arent nootropics because of how they affect you. If you take a standard nootropic like piracetam for a month straight and then abruptly stop, you might notice the nootropic not being present, but you wont have any real side effects. On the other hand, dosing a smart drug like modafinil on a consistent basis and then suddenly stopping might lead to insomnia, lack of focus, etc.

Were not saying that smart drugs are bad, necessarily. Were just saying that you shouldnt expect a subtle effect like other nootropics give you. When you take one, youll easily notice the effects, and when you come off of it, youll easily notice that you arent on it.

Vitamin B & Vitamin B Derivatives

B vitamins are unique in how they affect us. One of the most popular energy drinks, 5 Hour Energy, has vitamin B6 as its main ingredient (albeit 10,000x the RDA) because of the energy boost that it gives to us.

Naturally, with such effects, B vitamins are being explored as nootropics. Its important to note that vitamin B derivatives arent the same thing as B vitamins;theyve been modified in some way to become something other than the naturally-occurring vitamin.As of 2015, vitamin B derivatives are relatively new. Sulbutiamine is a derivative of vitamin B1 that was originally developed by the Japanese to combat fatigue, and it has the largest user base out of all of them. Picamillion is also a B derived nootropic as it combines niacin (B3) with GABA . More research is needed to conclude anything about B vitamins, but if youve had success from taking a B-complex or an energy drink like 5 Hour Energy, theyre worth exploring.

Ampakides

Ampakides are generally seen as piracetam was in the 80s and 90s interesting, but not researched a whole lot. Actually, out of all of the different types of nootropics, ampakides have the least research done on them.

They appear to work by antagonizing the AMPA and NDMA receptors in your body; this in turn leads to an uptick in glutamate available for your brain to use. Glutamate is said to increase memory span and focus abilities. But again, there hasnt been a whole lot of research done on ampakides or how they will affect you in the long-term.Only use ampakides if youre an explorer and willing to ingest something that hasnt been fully studied.

Peptides

Peptides are interesting in that they operate similarly to racetams, but arent the same thing. There arent a whole lot on the market today aside from noopept.

Noopept has quickly earned a reputation for being 1,000x more potent than piracetam while having similar effects. This means that the dosage is a lot smaller whereas you need 1.6g to 4.8g of piracetam per day, you only need 10mg to 40mg of noopept per day.

Although not as popular as racetams, peptides are worth exploring. Many users report similar effects as racetams, but not identical. Some like peptides more, whereas others stick with racetams. If you dont like what you feel from a certain racetam, its worth exploring peptides.

Blends

Many companies have jumped on the nootropic bandwagon and created nootropic blends. These blends are just a bunch of nootropics combined into a single pill, which is similar to stacking nootropics all on your own just easier.

Its important to take a look at the ingredients of each blend that youre considering. Sometimes, there will be ingredients that arent nootropics, and other times, there will be a blend of ingredients that you could easily concoct yourself for a fraction of the price. Often times they dont contain proper dosages of the ingredients to make them worthwhile.

The most popular nootropic blend is Alpha Brain from Onnit; you can check out our Alpha Brain full review and analysis here. By and large, people see success with this blend, but a lot of marketing is put into it its hard to get unbiased information when you look online. Wed recommend starting with pure nootropics first, and if you find one that you like, possibly getting a blend that has your choice nootropic as the #1 ingredient. If theres something we missed, please let us know so that we can bring our customers the most relevant information possible.

In a follow up blog post we will introduce you to the best nootropics for beginners, and from there we will cover some popular combinations of the individual nootropics in our post on the best nootropic stacks.

From Joe Rogan to Tim Ferriss, smart drugs were being talked about years ago before recently hitting mainstream.

Nootropics work, but you got to be careful.

Since nootropics are such a hot topic right now, it can be hard to separate whats legit and whats whack.

Our research team looked at the scientific research in-depth to find the best nootropics on the market right now.

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OptiMind provides the best balance among proven nootropic ingredients. It balances a moderate dose of vitamin D with a heavy dose of vitamin B12, and several key nootropic supplements, including L-tyrosine, bacopa extract, caffeine, ALA, and vinpocetine, to name just a few. The dosages are on-point and there arent any extraneous ingredients, making OptiMind come out number one.

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The widely-known nootropic supplement from Onnit, made famous in part thanks to Joe Rogans ringing endorsement, fares well thanks to the strong results from a clinical trial conducted at the Boston Center for Memory and published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in 2016 (1).

Alpha Brains blend of supplements seems particularly effective at boosting verbal skills, so its great if you need to read or write a lot.

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NeuroIgnite contains high doses of several powerful nootropic supplements, and moreover, the label actually tells you how much of each extract is in the supplement, unlike other companies who hide the specifics of their blend under the veil of a proprietary blend.

The heavy hitters in this blend are bacopa monnieri, DMAE, and ginkgo biloba, all heavily-researched supplements with evidence for nootropic effects.

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Zhou Nutritions Neuro-Peak is an immensely popular nootropic supplement that includes a massive dose of vitamin B12 and a slew of herbal extracts. Rhodiola rosea extract is one of the distinguishing factors in Neuro-Peak; this herbal extract appears to be effective at staving off mental fatigue.

Because of this, Neuro-Peak is a good choice if youre faced with a long stretch of continuous, mentally challenging work to do.

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We Are Fits Neuro Spark goes heavy on the St. Johns wort and ginkgo biloba, but includes some of the newer nootropic supplements like vinpocetine, bacopa monnieri, and huperzine-A as well.

Its a well-balanced, stimulant-free nootropic thats well-suited for boosting your performance at any cognitively challenging task.

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Ciltep by Natural Stacks is a little unusualit doesnt follow the lead of the more popular nootropic supplements. It chooses to include unconventional nootropic compounds like artichoke extract and forskolin extract (better known for its use as a weight loss supplement).

As you might guess, theres far less research on the cognitive enhancement properties of these supplements, but if normal nootropics arent doing it for you, Ciltep might be worth a shot.

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TruBrain focuses on delivering amino acids, plus the tried and true caffeine (only 100 mg per shot) and magnesium to achieve its nootropic effects. This approach is more about providing your brain with the natural building blocks it needs to function properly, versus trying to boost its function above its natural level. If you want more of a tune up than an upgrade, TruBrain is a good choice.

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Neovictas Clarity supplement is firmly in the kitchen sink camp, which is to say that it includes just about everything that might affect cognitive function. Its got vitamins, minerals, supplements, extracts, and synthetic compounds.

This betrays a lack of an overarching strategy when it comes to boosting cognitive function, but if you just want to cover your bases, its not a bad choice.

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Brain Boost is essentially a multivitamin along with several herbal extracts that affect biological processes related to cognitive function. Its purpose to to make sure your body is fueled up with the right micronutrients and biological precursors to function at its best.

Unfortunately, because its nootropic ingredients are part of a proprietary blend, its impossible to see how much of each ingredient is present in the supplement.

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NeuroFit is another nootropic that goes heavy on the vitamins and minerals, but is secretive about the amounts of the actual nootropic ingredients in its formulation. With so many ingredients, it seems unlikely that the active ingredients are present in high concentrations.

Nootropics are supplements that are designed to boost cognitive functionthat is, enhance your brains ability to learn, remember, and solve problems.

Though they are extremely popular among students, nootropics have a much broader appeal. Just about anybody in a complex job wants the ability to work faster and more effectively, and people who are getting older like the appeal of staving off brain fog and some of the cognitive decline that comes along with aging.

When a supplement claims to impact cognitive function, its a fairly easy claim to test.

Unlike other supplements that claim to boost well-being or promote a healthy immune system, testing cognitive function is straightforward: you get a group of subjects, give them the supplement in question or a placebo, then subject them to a battery of psychometric tests to assess their cognitive function.

There are a variety of types of these kinds of tests, and different supplements seem to affect different aspects of cognitive function. Some seem to boost memory, while others influence verbal abilities or help reduce mental fatigue (the diminishing of cognitive performance after long, challenging efforts).

A good case study in how testing nootropics work can be observed in the 2016 study that validated the effects of Alpha Brain (2).

Researchers split a group of volunteers into two groups, one of which was given Alpha Brain, and the other of which was given a placebo supplement. Both groups were tested for their cognitive abilities at the outset of the study, then took their assigned supplement for six weeks before being tested again.

The psychometric battery of tests used in the study included visual, spatial, logical, and verbal reasoning and memory. The results showed no improvement in most metrics, but a statistically significant increase in verbal memory.

Other supplements have been studied on an individual level to identify potential nootropic benefits. As you might guess, the most popular ingredients among the top-ranked nootropic supplements are also among the best-studied and most effective.

Bacopa monnieri, for example, is an herbal extract thats been demonstrated to have specific cognitive enhancing effects. A 2001 study in the scientific journal Psychopharmacology conducted a similar protocol to the Alpha Brain studya group of healthy adult subjects were given a 300 mg dose of bacopa monnieri extract or a placebo for twelve weeks, and were subjected to a battery of cognitive tests before and after the supplementation period (3).

In this case, the researchers found that the bacopa supplement increased the speed of visual information processing, learning rate, and memory consolidation.

Ginkgo biloba and vinpocetine looks to be an effective supplement when it comes to speeding up your short-term working memory.

A study published in the journal Human Psychopharmacology used a similar placebo-controlled experiment to study the effects of a combination of ginkgo biloba and vinpocetine on cognitive function, and found that the supplement combination increased the speed at which your working memory functions after being taken for two weeks (4).

When looking at nootropic supplements, youll have to think specifically about what kind of cognitive enhancement you are looking for.

When working on a major writing project, or attempting to work through a lot of reading material, taking something like Alpha Brain that increases verbal memory is could be very helpful.

If you were doing data entry, you might want something to improve short-term working memory, like ginkgo biloba and vinpocetine.

Its clear that taking the time to analyze the specific cognitive demands of the task in question will help immensely when you are deciding what the ideal nootropic supplement is for you.

Other nootropic supplements were studied initially to help with cognitive decline and dementia in the elderly, but have been hypothesized to be effective as well in healthy people.

One example of this is the herbal supplement huperzine-A. Early research found that it had a strong anti-dementia effect. A 1999 experiment described using a huperzine-A supplement to reverse natural dementia in elderly monkeys, as well as reversing chemically-induced cognitive decline in young monkeys (5).

Research into whether it can be used to actually boost cognitive performance in healthy humans is still lacking, but this hasnt stopped people from betting that it will.

An entirely different strategy in nootropics is simply providing your brain with extra building blocks to use in the process of synthesizing neurotransmitters, which are chemicals your brain uses to think. Many nootropics simply provide high doses of the amino acids that are associated with cognitive function.

These are less well-studied, perhaps because simply keeping your brains amino acid reserved topped off isnt as exciting as artificially enhancing its performance, but its nevertheless a strategically sound approach.

Since nootropic supplements are so new, their side effect profile is not well-studied. So far, there have been no major adverse side effects reported that are associated with the ingredients used in the best and most popular nootropic supplements.

In this regard they appear to have a safer safety profile than other categories of multi-ingredient supplements, like weight loss supplements.

The one caveat to this applies to nootropic supplements that contain caffeine. While caffeine is one of the best-studied and most effective cognitive enhancement supplements (as every coffee addict knows), it can cause side effects like jitters and nausea in people who are sensitive to it.

Further, taking it at night is a bad idea, thanks to caffeines ability to act as a stimulantunless, of course, you are trying to stay up all night. Theres nothing wrong with caffeine in a nootropic supplement, but make sure you know how many milligrams each serving contains.

Only a small number of nootropics have established effective doses, and these are mostly derived from the dosages chosen in scientific studies that examined the supplement in question.

Bacopa monnieri, for example, appears to be effective at doses of 300 mg, and ginkgo biloba extract can be effective at doses as low as 40 mg.

Vinpocetine seems to require doses of 30 to 60 mg, but this comes from scientific literature using it to study cognitive decline and dementia in the elderly, so its not clear if boosting brain function in healthy people can be accomplished with a lower dose.

DMAEs studied dosage range is typically about 100 mg, but this seems to come from studies looking at its use to induce lucid dreaming!

Clearly, more work is needed to establish optimal doses for nootropic supplements, but looking for dosages close to these guidelines is at least a good place to start.

Nootropics are a new field of supplementation, but there is fairly strong evidence emerging that a number of different supplements can positively affect your cognitive functioning.

Each seems to serve a slightly different purpose, so think about the cognitive demands in your life before you choose a nootropic supplement. Once you know the kinds of problems you want to solve, make sure your supplement of choice has dosages of the major nootropic compounds you want that are at least close to the range studied in the scientific literature.

When done with care, nootropics appear to be a safe and effective way to increase your brain power and help you work faster, smarter, and more effectively.

NeuroFuse came in a close second. It had the right idea to provide the wide range of ingredients it did in their formula. They included some key ingredients including Bacopa Monnieri, Huperzine A, Vinpocetine and also included a good Vitamin B blend. We did note that they include caffeine, but it is unclear from which source this is from.

We did note a significant warning with this product, namely that the caffeine it contains may cause a negative impact, mainly that some users may experience the jitters. Their dosage suggests that one can take up to 6 pills a day, which we felt was too many. These issues made us a little wary of the product, even though they seem to know the right ingredients to include.

We felt that NeuroFuse was pretty much on par with other similar products. We were happy to see that this supplier offers a money-back guarantee. However, we didn’t really like the 14-day trial offer they promote. On the surface it seems good, however, our experience on these matters suggests that if consumers are not happy with the product, cancelling subscriptions can be a nightmare. We much prefer a simple clear money-back guarantee, it’s safer for consumers.

NeuroFuse was almost there with a top quality product but we felt that there were several key elements missing. It does contain a lot of the top natural ingredients for cognitive energy enhancement. However, the fact that their money-back guarantee is not apparent and that they are baiting customers in using a 14-day free trial offer, made us slightly wary. If they addressed these issues, we felt that this could have been a winner!

Social media, shopping, videos, games…these apps and websites are scientifically engineered to keep you hooked and coming back. The cost to your productivity, ability to focus, and general well-being can be staggering. Freedom gives you control. Freedomgivesyoucontrol.

When looking for a mortgage, its important to find a company that specializes in mortgages above all else, and to find a lender that can address your unique home buying or refinancing needs regardless of how unique your circumstances may be.

The Loudoun Freedom is an AAU basketball organization that has been catering specifically to the needs of female athletes since 2004. The Freedom offers quality coaching and provides players with a year-round opportunity to develop advanced basketball skills and knowledge while playing in very competitive environment. The organization emphasizes player development and welcomes all girls from 2nd grade through 11th grades who are interested in playing at a higher level. Our goal is to attract and develop the top talent from Loudoun and neighboring counties so that the best players are constantly challenging themselves and each other to improve their skills.

Spring 2019 Tryouts

The Loudoun Freedom will hold tryouts in Spring 2019 to form GIRLS’ teams in the following grades: 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th.

Registration is OPEN. Interested families can pre-register their daughter online!

Dates:February 10 at Harper Park MSFebruary 17 at Brambleton MSFebruary 24 at Harper Parks MS – this is ONLY for the second round of high school-age tryouts

Spring 2019 Tentative Practice Schedules: Will be updated based on tryouts. The ability to have 1-2 teams per age group is dependent on turnout at tryouts.

Freedom Challenge Tournament

The Loudoun Freedom hosted its annual Freedom Challenge tournament on April 27-28, 2019. This tournament supports girls teams from 3rd grade through 11th grade. It typically attracts over 100 teams so claim your spot! We have changed the registration fee due to eliminating admissions fees.

Register online here. You can also mail in Registration Form and payment.

The Loudoun Freedom supports the efforts of the Days for Girls Loudoun County organization and their efforts to increases access to person care and education by developing global partnerships, cultivating social enterprises, mobilizing volunteers, and innovating sustainable solutions that shatter stigmas and limitations for women and girls around the world. Days for Girls works to create a world with dignity, health, and opportunity for all.

Freedom, generally, is having an ability to act or change without constraint. A thing is “free” if it can change its state easily and is not constrained in its present state. In philosophy and religion, it is associated with having free will and being without undue or unjust constraints, or enslavement, and is an idea closely related to the concept of liberty. A person has the freedom to do things that will not, in theory or in practice, be prevented by other forces. Outside of the human realm, freedom generally does not have this political or psychological dimension. A rusty lock might be oiled so that the key has freedom to turn, undergrowth may be hacked away to give a newly planted sapling freedom to grow, or a mathematician may study an equation having many degrees of freedom. In mechanical engineering, “freedom” describes the number of independent motions that are allowed to a body or system, which is generally referred to as degrees of freedom.”

In philosophical discourse, freedom is discussed in the context of free will and self-determination, balanced by moral responsibility.

Advocates of free will regard freedom of thought as innate to the human mind, while opponents regard the mind as thinking only the thoughts that a purely deterministic brain happens to be engaged in at the time.

In political discourse, political freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of “giving oneself their own laws”, and with having rights and the civil liberties with which to exercise them without undue interference by the state. Frequently discussed kinds of political freedom include freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of choice, and freedom of speech.

In some circumstances, particularly when discussion is limited to political freedoms, the terms “freedom” and “liberty” tend to be used interchangeably.[1][2] Elsewhere, however, subtle distinctions between freedom and liberty have been noted.[3] JohnStuartMill, differentiated liberty from freedom in that freedom is primarily, if not exclusively, the ability to do as one wills and what one has the power to do; whereas liberty concerns the absence of arbitrary restraints and takes into account the rights of all involved. As such, the exercise of liberty is subject to capability and limited by the rights of others.[4]

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun explains the differences in terms of their relation to institutions:

Liberty is linked to human subjectivity; freedom is not. The Declaration of Independence, for example, describes men as having liberty and the nation as being free. Free willthe quality of being free from the control of fate or necessitymay first have been attributed to human will, but Newtonian physics attributes freedomdegrees of freedom, free bodiesto objects.[5]

Freedom differs from liberty as control differs from discipline. Liberty, like discipline, is linked to institutions and political parties, whether liberal or libertarian; freedom is not. Although freedom can work for or against institutions, it is not bound to themit travels through unofficial networks. To have liberty is to be liberated from something; to be free is to be self-determining, autonomous. Freedom can or cannot exist within a state of liberty: one can be liberated yet unfree, or free yet enslaved (Orlando Patterson has argued in Freedom: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture that freedom arose from the yearnings of slaves).[5]

Another distinction that some political theorists have deemed important is that people may aspire to have freedom from limiting forces (such as freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom from discrimination), but descriptions of freedom and liberty generally do not invoke having liberty from anything.[2] To the contrary, the concept of negative liberty refers to the liberty one person may have to restrict the rights of others.[2]

Other important fields in which freedom is an issue include economic freedom, academic freedom, intellectual freedom, and scientific freedom.

In purely physical terms, freedom is used much more broadly to describe the limits to which physical movement or other physical processes are possible. This relates to the philosophical concept to the extent that people may be considered to have as much freedom as they are physically able to exercise. The number of independent variables or parameters for a system is described as its number of degrees of freedom. For example the movement of a vehicle along a road has two degrees of freedom; to go fast or slow, or to change direction by turning left or right. The movement of a ship sailing on the waves has four degrees of freedom, since it can also pitch nose-to-tail and roll side-to-side. An aeroplane can also climb and sideslip, giving it six degrees of freedom.

Degrees of freedom in mechanics describes the number of independent motions that are allowed to a body, or, in case of a mechanism made of several bodies, the number of possible independent relative motions between the pieces of the mechanism. In the study of complex motor control, there may be so many degrees of freedom that a given action can be achieved in different ways by combining movements with different degrees of freedom. This issue is sometimes called the degrees of freedom problem.

In mathematics freedom is the ability of a variable to change in value.

Some equations have many such variables. This notion is formalized as the dimension of a manifold or an algebraic variety. When degrees of freedom is used instead of dimension, this usually means that the manifold or variety that models the system is only implicitly defined. Such degrees of freedom appear in many mathematical and related disciplines, including degrees of freedom as used in physics and chemistry to explain dependence on parameters, or the dimensions of a phase space; and degrees of freedom in statistics, the number of values in the final calculation of a statistic that are free to vary.

Freedom is the state of being entirely free. Many governments claim to guarantee freedom, but often people do not, in fact, have the absolute freedom to act or speak without restraint.

People in jail long for freedom. People living under an oppressive government also long for freedom. In the United States, people theoretically have “freedom of speech”: the right to say whatever theyre moved to say. Youll notice the word free in freedom. Free comes from the German frei, meaning, to love. The word friend shares this origin. You can think of freedom as the condition in which you have the choice to love any friend you wish.

Freedom Health, Inc. is an HMO with a Medicare contract and a contract with the state Medicaid program. Enrollment in Freedom Health, Inc. depends on contract renewal. This Information is not a complete description of benefits. Call 1-800-401-2740 (TTY: 711) for more information. Medicare beneficiaries may also enroll in Freedom Health through the CMS Medicare Online Enrollment Center located at http://www.medicare.gov. Every year, Medicare evaluates plans based on a 5-star rating system.

Freedom Health, Inc. has been approved by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) to operate as a Special Needs Plan (SNP) until 2020 based on a review Freedom Health, Inc.s Model of Care.

Two men separated by 100 years are united in their search for freedom. In 1856 a slave, Samuel Woodward and his family, escape from the Monroe Plantation near Richmond, Virginia. A secret network of ordinary people known as the Underground Railroad guide the family on their journey north to Canada. They are relentlessly pursued by the notorious slave hunter Plimpton. Hunted like a dog and haunted by the unthinkable suffering he and his forbears have endured, Samuel is forced to decide between revenge or freedom. 100 years earlier in 1748, John Newton the Captain of a slave trader sails from Africa with a cargo of slaves, bound for America. On board is Samuel’s great grandfather whose survival is tied to the fate of Captain Newton. The voyage changes Newton’s life forever and he creates a legacy that will inspire Samuel and the lives of millions for generations to come.

Freedom is an anthem dedicated to black women. The song brings Beyoncs visual album to an apex with the scene hope and features the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner pictured with photos of their deceased sons.

Throughout the song, Beyonc alludes to herself as a force of nature who can empower other women like herself to break free of the bonds society places on them. She addresses her struggle with infidelity as a black woman, as well as alluding to the history of slavery inflicted upon African-Americans, including current issues and the Black Lives Matter movement. Beyonc and her writers, musicians, and producers sonically reference the musical memories of all those periods.

Beyonc is joined by Kendrick Lamar in their first ever collaboration. While Beyonc focuses on womens issues, Kendrick continues to touch on institutionalized racism, a major theme of his critically acclaimed 2015 album To Pimp A Butterfly. However, Kendrick also brings women to the forefront, alluding to 2Pacs Dear Mama and Ride 4 Me while sending a message of empowerment to his own mother.

In Kendricks verse, he employs a style of writing that counts down from ten to five, before switching to a syllable count to further the countdown. This gives the impression that Kendrick is counting down towards something significant. Within context of the song (and the final bars of the verse), Kendrick is likely counting down to freedom from oppression. Yasiin Bey employs a similar writing style on Mathematics.

Along with issues affecting black women, social equality justice are major motifs of this song.

Producer Just Blaze told the Rap Radar podcast that Beyonc came to him with the Let Me Try sample by Kaleidoscope and an already completed demo.